chespernevins: "Some more thoughts regarding chord function in the LCC - check out p. 47 of the old book.

GR uses the close to distant relationship idea with regards to each chord and its surrounding chords, but also in comparison to the overall key of the music.

However, because there is so much freedom and there are so many choices available, he chooses chords based on other criteria. He chooses chords that harmonize the melody (unwritten on this page, but obvious to all), and he also uses strong voice leading in the bass line: | Gb | F | E A | Ab |

Put that together with the melody:

| Ab | Db | G | C || Gb | F | E A | Ab|

and he comes up with:

| Gb7b5 | F7+5 | E-7b5 A7+5 | Ab |"

this made me think that in addition to the criteria commonly spoken of such as root motion (bass line) and melody (voice leading) the lydian tonic serves as an additional anchor into the sound of the music. rather than replacing melody and root progression or any of the other well known traditions of music theory; the lydian tonic enhances our awareness of same.

The full term was "harmonic orbit". We often used this term to describe temporary modulations centered on a single lydian tonic inside the context of the whole. It doesn't matter if it's close or remote. The only thing that matters is it's duration and point of view.

Motherlode, Thanks for this. Would you be willing to write up an example of harmonic orbits in use?

Ok, wow, wow, wow. That's interesting. I'm glad I asked because that's different than what I assumed you meant.

Recall, families of chords have certain 'movements' that are characteristic of the family. For instance, 7th chords a minor 3rd apart belong to the same family. Therefore, they are free to move ie, 'orbit' within the family.

ML, have you mentioned this before? I'd like to go back and look at it. Does the term harmonic orbits as you use it always use parallel movement of similar chord types? It's fascinating how you use this as a way to structure chromatic movement within one "Lydian Chromatic" area. Very much like the "Modal Harmonic Structures" in the back of the original book, but the parallelism adds your own twist.

Chord 'movements' depend on the family and chord quality. No. They are not all parallel (in no way). After we learned the 5 basic chord colors (in the old days) we learned at least one 'movement' for each family. There are several movements in each family. The guys now-a-days basically learn progressions and inversions. Little attention seems to have been paid to how chord families move. OK.

After we learned the 5 basic chord colors (in the old days) we learned at least one 'movement' for each family. There are several movements in each family.

Orbits; we always used the term to cover secondary progressions belonging to a SINGLE lydian tonic (but you usually only encounter such things in advanced music, Ravel, GR, Ellington). I only used a chord 'movement' in my example of an 'orbit' because they're interesting.

So Orbits are substitutions from this pool: C Maj, D7, F#m7b5, Ab7+5, A-, B7b9, etc? Is this correct?

I hope I'm not asking too abruptly. I'm running around these days. But I'm also very curious to hear more...